A similar relation exists between CEO leisure consumption and firm market capitalization, which suggests that shareholder wealth is also negatively affected by the time CEOs spent on the fairways and greens.
The wealth transfer is larger now because U.S. market capitalization has increased to about $20 trillion.
This index includes nearly 98percentt of U.S. stocks, but the market capitalization of the top U.S. companies is not a good indicator of wealth gains for the general population.
Lipsky argues that because Europe's stock market capitalization is starting from a low level, financial deregulation can create more wealth more quickly in Europe than anywhere else in the world.
H.P.'s market capitalization stands at nearly $121 billion today, reflecting the addition of nearly $60 billion in shareholder wealth under Mr. Hurd's watch.
The wealth shifted too; Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola lost approximately $280B in market capitalization during the same time Apple, Google and Research in Motion created $490B.
Gates has seen his personal wealth plummet by more than $30 billion this month, and recently Cisco's market capitalization passed Microsoft's for the first time.
While wiping out billions in paper wealth, Microsoft fell from its perch as the biggest company in the world, measured by market capitalization.
But G.E.'s $398 billion market capitalization at the beginning of the year was so high that the fall in its stock price destroyed shareholders' wealth in colossal proportions.
